Every Day

Eric Gray recently shared a story with me from the pen of Kyle Idleman:

A friend of mine told me about an elderly man he knew who could no longer take care of himself and whose family made the difficult decision to put him in a nursing home.  Every Sunday afternoon the man’s daughter and her husband and their children would go see him.  Every Sunday this elderly man would wait for his daughter and her family to come visit.  He looked forward to it all week and was always out waiting for them.  As the years passed, his mind grew weaker, and he soon had a hard time remembering his children’s names.  He would sometimes have a hard time getting back to his room.

But no matter what happened, on Sunday afternoon, he was always there waiting for his daughter and her family.

One day the daughter asked her father, “Daddy, do you know what day of the week it is?”  The father couldn’t tell her what day of the week it was.  So the daughter said to her dad, “Well, Daddy, how did you know to wait for us today?”

The father replied, “Oh, honey, I wait for you every day.”

In Luke 15:11-24, we read the beloved parable of Jesus that we call “The Prodigal Son.”  It’s about the younger of two sons that asks his father for his inheritance even while his father is still living.  The father gave the inheritance to both of his sons.

"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living” (Luke 15:13 NIV).

The prodigal son ended up feeding pigs in the pigpen, longing for home.  He humbled himself and decided he would go back and ask his father if he could come home and serve as a servant in his father’s household.  He didn’t feel worthy to be called a son anymore.

“So he got up and went to his father.  But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).  His father had a great celebration because, as he said, “this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:24).

How often did the father scan the horizon looking for the return of his son?  Jesus doesn’t say, but I’m thinking he looked for his son every day.

The father in the parable represents God.  And God is looking for the return of His lost children every day.

We find ourselves in a “pigpen” in a “far country” due to our sins.  We are lost, doomed to destruction.

The heavenly Father is waiting every day for us to “come home” to Him.  He even gave His one and only Son to die on the cross for our sins so that we can come home and live with Him for an eternity as one of His children (see John 3:16).

God will “welcome home” those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will also “welcome home” those of His children who have left home again and are willing to humble themselves, repent of their sins, and confess their sins to Him (1 John 1:7-9).

He’s waiting for YOU to come home, every day.  Won’t YOU?                                  

-- David A. Sargent

David A. Sargent, Minister